"Is Ubuntu an operating system? Last week at EuroOSCON, Mark Shuttleworth gave the closing keynote outlining what he believes are the major struggles faced by the open-source/free-software community. During his talk, it became clear that Ubuntu is trying to achieve a radical shift in the software world. Ubuntu isn't trying to be a platform for mass-market application software: it is trying to be the primary provider of both the operating system and all the application software that a typical user would want to run on his machine. Most Linux distributions are like this, and I think it is a dangerous trend that will stifle innovation and usability."

It doesnt clarify anything to me. Go read http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/licensing. Read the section titled "Software installed by default". Note that it says that "binary only" hardware drivers are installed by default even though they are marked as restricted.

So again, proprietary drivers are in a different restricted repository but installed by default. It might not be used in the configuration. I make no claims about that. It is a fact that proprietary stuff gets installed by default without a choice.

"""So again, proprietary drivers are in a different restricted repository but installed by default."""

Installed but not used. Unless you have a concrete example of proprietary software being used without the user's consent, I simply have to declare this argument as one not worth having.

Does proprietary software sitting on a disk, unused, make the user "dirty"? If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, is there a sound? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Many users have said it is configured by default. Whether or not it does, installing proprietary software without the user's consent in a distribution that claims to support free software is misleading and false.